A few months ago, I had my first spa experience. As I wandered around the spa, brightly lit in every room, using water all over the place, I wondered if the spa experience could be just as soothing if it was made green. A quick search on the Internet found that green spas do indeed exist, you just have to look for them.

Sites like SpaIndex.com and SpaFinder.com make it easy to find resorts and spas that are considered eco-friendly or offer holistic services. The sites extend to include spas all over the world that incorporate at least some aspect of ecological awareness into their services.

For example, the Green Bliss Eco Spa of Los Angeles is a mobile spa service that makes eco-conscious choices like:
• Chooses products that have minimal and or recycled packaging.
• Buying in bulk to avoid excess packaging and shipping.
• Encourages staff, as well as customers, to car-pool or use alternative means of transportation when possible.
• Use as many methods of paperless transactions as possible through the use of email and e-commerce.
• Contributes 1% of gross to organizations which work to promote a healthier, cleaner environment, more compassionate urban life, equality for all people regardless of race, sexual orientation, or gender, and healthier, safer children. We have chosen front-line activist groups who have little or no overhead who make a difference by working in a more focused, streamlined way.

They also encourage their employees and customers to engage in eco-friendly practices.

Non-mobile and overnight spas are often located in exotic locations that include organic gardens and other odes to nature as well as pay special attention to the environment, possibly using eco-friendly solutions that you don’t see as well, like solar panels and eco-cleaning products.

Next time you need to get away, or even for some temporary rest and relaxation, try a green spa for an environmentally friendly good time.

For people on the East Coast, there is a new reason to recycle. RecycleBank.com rewards customers with up to $35 a month for recycling. They even pick up your recyclables right from your curb.

RecyleBank is currently available in cities in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Connecticut, Virginia, Nebraska, Vermont, Massachusetts and New York and have continued plans for expansion. RecyleBank.com is an incentive program to get customers to recycle, “ RecycleBank rewards you for home recycling. Your RecycleBank Recycling Container has a barcode that is identified by the recycling truck. The amount recycled is translated into RecycleBank Reward Points that you can use to shop at hundreds of participating stores.”

Stores and business connected to RecycleBank also benefit from being connected to the RecycleBank program as it shows their customers their commitment to their community as well as provides them with positive advertising, not to mention having a positive effective on the environment as well as generating more jobs.

According to the Letter from the Founders found on the RecycleBank website, there are three primary goals for RecycleBank:

Dramatically increase recycling rates
Promote socially responsible businesses
Generate savings for municipalities by avoiding landfill disposal fees.

RecycleBank’s continued expansion is encouraging because one of the biggest problems with recycling is a lack of participation and as they continue to expand, recycling participation will hopefully increase as well.

A basic definition of greenwashing is when companies claim to “go green,” when in fact, that is only a small portion of their overall non-green corporations. Recently, I’ve seen a lot of ads from GE about their investments in green technologies and alternative energy practices, so I wondered; if GE is really green or simply greenwashed.

At http://greenwashingindex.com, you can learn about how to tell whether or not a company or product is green or just greenwashed by following their 3 easy steps:

1.  Truth: If you see a green ad, take a look at the company as a whole. Can you easily find more information about their sustainable business practices on their Web site? Do they have a comprehensive environmental story? Is there believable information to substantiate the green claims you saw in the ad? If not, buyer beware.

   2. The Whole Truth: Next, try this. Google the company name plus the word “environment” and see what pops up. This is far from scientific, but if consumers or environmental advocates have a beef with the company's track record, something’s bound to pop up.

   3. And Nothing But The Truth: “I know it when I see it.” Those are the words of Supreme Court Justice Warren Potter in a ruling on hard-core pornography in 1964. As weird as it may seem, those are words to live by for the consumer and green marketing claims. If you spot a green ad, how does it strike your gut? Does it ring true and authentic, or is it obviously hype? Smart shoppers abound globally, and your own scrutiny of green marketing claims is one more item to throw into your shopping cart.

I’m not the only one that wondered about GE’s greenness. Although there is only one vote, GE’s Ecomagination Ad received a 4.2 out of 5 for being greenwashed.

We all know the major ways how we should be saving energy in our home; changing out our old, inefficient appliances for energy-saving ones, like those provided by Energy Star or using LED bulbs instead of traditional or CFL bulbs. But these changes can put a serious dent in the bank account, at least initially until you start seeing a significant savings in energy bills over a period of time. Some of the biggest wastes of energy in a home come from kitchen appliances. For those who want to make changes but can’t afford a large initial cash output, Virginia Lacy, a Consultant with the Energy & Resources Team at Rocky Mountain Institute, suggests trying the following steps in your kitchen:

Oven

    * Don't open the oven door to check on a dish — use the oven light instead (20 percent of the heat can be lost each time you open the oven door).
    * Keep preheating to a minimum.
    * Turn the oven off before cooking is complete (depending on the dish, up to 15 minutes). The heat in the oven will continue to cook the dish until finished.
    * If you need to self-clean the oven, plan to do it after cooking a meal while the oven is already hot, requiring less energy to raise the temperature to a higher level.

Stovetop

    * Match the pan size to the element size.
    * Use the least amount of water and the smallest size pan possible. Otherwise you're wasting energy to heat up excess metal or excess water.

Refrigerator

    * Let hot foods cool to room temperature before putting them in the fridge. Otherwise the fridge works even harder to bring the temperature down.
    * Keep the freezer full. The more air you displace with food and beverages, the less cold air you lose when you open the freezer door.

Dishwasher

    * Run the dishwasher when full; it requires the same amount of energy for a full load as it does for a half load.
    * Use the "no heat" drying option.
    * Don't wash dishes twice. Although it depends upon the age of your dishwasher, most dishwashers can get your dishes clean without rinsing them first by hand.

Other appliances

    * Plug countertop appliances into a power strip that can be turned off after use, saving the energy that would be used by the appliances when in "standby mode." (Depending upon how often you use your microwave, the microwave's digital clock could use more energy than the microwave oven itself.)
    * You can also simply unplug appliances when you're done using them.

These simple steps not only help the planet, but will also save money off of your utility bills.

According to the RAM website, “The vision for Remote Area Medical® developed in the Amazon rain forest where founder Stan Brock spent 15 years with the Wapishana Indians. He lived with the pain and suffering created by isolation from medical care. He witnessed the near devastation of whole tribes by what would have been simple or minor illnesses to more advanced cultures. When he left South America to co-star in the television series, "Wild Kingdom, " he vowed to find a way to deliver basic medical aid to people in the world's inaccessible regions.”

R.A.M. was founded in 1985 as a vast network of volunteers from the medical and dental professions who, along with volunteer pilots and aircraft, provide much needed healthcare to denizens of remote locales who don’t have access to medical care. The organization even provides veterinary care. All professionals travel at their own expense to treat hundreds of patients a day under grueling and difficult conditions.

Recently, R.A.M. was featured on 60 Minutes, because although the organization was founded to treat people in remote and underdeveloped areas of the world, they have recently been doing a lot of volunteering in the United States. Although many states don’t allow medical practioners to practice in states where they are not licensed, some, especially in the South, do and R.A.M. has held events in those areas so that people who do not have health insurance can get medical attention from donated supplies and volunteers. Lately, more and more free healthcare clinics have been held in the United States even though the organization was designed to help those overseas.

Hopefully, the healthcare industry in the United States will soon change and R.A.M can get back overseas, doing the work it was founded to do.